New York Unclaimed Property - Proposed "Electronic Contact" Rule
The New York Office of Unclaimed Funds ("OUF") has published a new proposed administrative rule relating to “electronic contact” for public comment. Under New York law, the dormancy period for abandoned property is generally terminated and reset by owner-generated “contact” with the holder. The OUF’s proposed regulation puts in writing something that most unclaimed property holders are already doing – equating various types of electronic events as owner "contact" for purposes of the Abandoned Property Law. The new regulation expressly provides that “[e]vidence of electronic contact or electronic account activity within the relevant dormancy period . . . can be cited to prevent the property from being deemed abandoned.” The regulation also specifies two types of electronic contact that will suffice as such evidence: (1) the receipt of email from the account holder “that matches the registere...